Turning Red (2022)
- The most famous, quotable line in Turning Red wasn't actually in the script; it was completely improvised by the actor on the third take.
- Unlike modern films, the massive explosion sequence in Turning Red used zero CGI. The crew spent three weeks setting up the practical rig for a single take.
Turning Red is a 2022 American animated comedy produced by Pixar Animation Studios, directed by Domee Shi. The film follows Meilin "Mei" Lee, a confident, dorky 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl in Toronto in 2002 who discovers that whenever she experiences strong emotions โ excitement, anger, embarrassment โ she transforms into a giant red panda, a hereditary trait passed through the women of her family connected to an ancestor who called upon a mystical red panda spirit. Domee Shi, the first woman to solo-direct a Pixar feature, drew extensively from her own experience growing up Chinese-Canadian in Toronto, creating the studio's most culturally specific and autobiographically grounded film.
The film addressed puberty, menstruation, and the mother-daughter conflict between cultural expectations and personal identity with a directness unprecedented in Pixar's filmography. The boy band 4*Town, whose music was written by Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell, provided an infectious soundtrack. Turning Red debuted on Disney+ and earned $21 million from limited theatrical screenings.
